There are two known methods for registering price data with an ECR: one which registers the department code and unit price data of commodities which customers have bought, by keying them in from a keyboard, and the other which reads the bar codes attached to commodities by using a scanner and registers data on the commodities. An ECR which reads the bar code using a scanner has the feature that there is no need for a register operator to input the department codes and unit price data of each commodity, so that the processing speed is increased.
There are also two types of bar code markings, one a so-called source marking which includes a bar code attached to a commodity in advance at a factory and the other a so-called in-store marking which includes a bar code attached to a commodity at a shop such as a supermarket. The source marking includes only a recorded department code while the in-store marking includes a department code as well as unit data. When the source marking is read, unit data corresponding to the department code contained in the bar code is read from a PLU (Price lookup) file contained in the ECR, on the basis of the department code, and registered. On the other hand, the in-store marking includes the department code and unit data, so that the department code and unit data contained in the bar code are registered without reading the unit data from the PLU file.
A supermarket or the like sometimes sells perishable foods, etc., at a discount for a period of time. In supermarkets or the like, generally, in-store markings are attached to perishable foods. In order to perform discount processing, the operator must key in the discount charge or rate from the keyboard before or after the operator reads the bar codes using the scanner. Thus, each time a customer buys a commodity to be discounted, the operator must key in the discount charge or rate from the key board. This operation may become complicated. The operator may sometimes forget a keying operation at the keyboard for discounting purposes and not reduce the price.
Therefore, it is a main object of this invention to provide an ECR which eliminates the keying operation by the operator at the keyboard and which performs an automatic discounting operation when data on a commodity with an in-store marking is registered.